Biography and career of Rudolf Erich Raspe. Who wrote The Adventures of Baron Munchausen? Biography and career of Rudolf Erich Raspe Last years and death

Karl Friedrich Munchausen (German Karl Friedrich Hieronymus Freiherr von Münchhausen, May 11, 1720, Bodenwerder - February 22, 1797, ibid.) Is a German baron, a descendant of the ancient Lower Saxon family of Munchausen, a captain of the Russian service, a historical person and a literary character. Munchausen's name has become a household name as a designation of a person who tells incredible stories.

Jerome Karl Friedrich was the fifth of eight children in the family of Colonel Otto von Munchausen. The father died when the boy was 4 years old, and was raised by his mother. In 1735, 15-year-old Munchausen entered the service of the Sovereign Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel Ferdinand Albrecht II as a page.

In 1737, as a page, he leaves for Russia to the young Duke Anton Ulrich, the groom and then the husband of Princess Anna Leopoldovna. In 1738 he took part with the Duke in the Turkish campaign. In 1739 he entered the Braunschweig Cuirassier Regiment with the rank of a cornet, the chief of which was the Duke. At the beginning of 1741, immediately after the overthrow of Biron and the appointment of Anna Leopoldovna as ruler, and Duke Anton Ulrich as Generalissimo, he received the rank of lieutenant and command of the Life Campaign (the first, elite company of the regiment).

The Elizabethan coup that took place in the same year, overthrowing the Brunschweig family, interrupted a career that promised to be brilliant: despite his reputation as an exemplary officer, Munchausen received his next rank (captain) only in 1750, after numerous petitions. In 1744, he commanded an honor guard that met in Riga the Tsarevich's bride, Princess Sophia-Frederica of Anhalt-Zerbst (future Empress Catherine II). In the same year he marries a Riga noblewoman Jacobina von Dunten.

Having received the rank of captain, Munchausen takes a year's leave "to correct extreme and necessary needs" (specifically, to share the family property with the brothers) and leaves for Bodenwerder, which he gets during the division (1752). He twice extended his leave and finally submitted a letter of resignation to the Military Collegium, conferring the rank of lieutenant colonel for blameless service; received the answer that the petition should be submitted on the spot, but he never went to Russia, as a result of which in 1754 he was expelled as having left the service without permission, but until the end of his life he signed as a captain of the Russian service.

Turkish dagger that belonged to Jerome von Munghausen. Museum exposition in Bodenwerder.

From 1752 until his death, Munchausen lived in Bodenwerder, communicating mainly with neighbors, to whom he tells amazing stories about his hunting adventures and adventures in Russia. Such stories usually took place in the hunting pavilion built by Munchausen and hung with the heads of wild beasts, known as the "Pavilion of Lies"; another favorite place for Munchausen's stories was the inn of the King of Prussia Hotel in neighboring Göttingen.

Bodenwerder

One of Munchausen's listeners described his stories as follows:
"He usually started talking after dinner, lighting his huge foam pipe with a short mouthpiece and placing a smoking glass of punch in front of him ... He gestured more and more expressively, twisted his little dandy wig on his head, his face became more and more animated and reddened, and he, usually very a truthful person, in those minutes he was wonderfully playing out his fantasies. "

The horse cannot get drunk, because during the assault
Ochakov, its posterior half is lost.

The Baron's stories (such unconditionally belonging to him subjects as the entry into Petersburg on a wolf harnessed to a sleigh, a horse cut in half in Ochakovo, a horse on a bell tower, furious fur coats or a cherry tree growing on a deer's head) widely dispersed throughout the neighborhood and even penetrated to print, but with decent anonymity.

Museum exposition in Bodenwerder.

For the first time, three plots of Munchausen appear in the book "Der Sonderling" by Count Rocks Friedrich Linar (1761). In 1781, a collection of such subjects was published in the Berlin almanac "A Guide for Merry People", with an indication that they belong to the well-known for his wit, Mr. Mr. Zn, who lives in Gr (Hanover); in 1783 two more stories of this kind were published in the same almanac.

But the saddest was ahead: at the beginning of 1786, the historian Erich Raspe, convicted of stealing a numismatic collection, fled to England and there, in order to get some money, wrote a book in English that forever introduced the baron into literary history, "Tales of Baron Munchausen about his wonderful travels and campaigns in Russia ". During the year, "Stories" went through 4 reprints, and in the third edition Raspe included the first illustrations.

The Baron considered his name dishonored and was going to sue Burger (according to other sources, he filed it, but was refused on the grounds that the book was a translation of an English anonymous publication). In addition, the work of Raspe-Burger immediately gained such popularity that onlookers began to flock to Bodenwerder - to look at the "liar baron", and Munchausen had to place servants around the house to drive away the curious.

Last years Munchausen were overshadowed by family troubles. In 1790 his wife Jacobina dies. Four years later, Munchausen married 17-year-old Bernardine von Brun, who led an extremely wasteful and frivolous lifestyle and soon gave birth to a daughter, whom the 75-year-old Munchausen did not recognize, considering the father of the clerk Huden. Munchausen started a scandalous and costly divorce proceedings, as a result of which he went broke, and his wife fled abroad.

Now the city administration is located in the Munchausen house.
The burgomaster's office is located in the bedroom of the previous owner.

Before his death, he made his last characteristic joke: to the question of the only servant caring for him, how he lost two toes (frostbitten in Russia), Munchausen replied: "They were bitten off by a polar bear while hunting." Jerome Munchausen died on February 22, 1797 in poverty from an apoplectic stroke, alone and abandoned by all. But he remained in literature and in our minds a never discouraged, cheerful person.

Bodenwerder

The first translation (more precisely, a free retelling) of the book about Munchausen into Russian belongs to the pen of NP Osipov and was published in 1791 under the title: "If you don't like it, don't listen, but don't bother lying." The literary baron Munchausen became a well-known character in Russia thanks to K.I. Chukovsky, who adapted the book by E. Raspe for children. K. Chukovsky translated the surname of the Baron from English "Munchausen" into Russian as "Munchausen". In German it is spelled "Munchhausen" and translated into Russian as "Munchausen".

The image of Baron Munchausen received the most significant development in Russian - Soviet cinema, in the film "That very Munchausen", where the scriptwriter G. Gorin gave the baron bright romantic traits character, while distorting some facts of the personal life of Hieronymus von Munchausen.

In the cartoon "The Adventures of Munchausen" the Baron is endowed with classic features, bright and magnificent.

In 2005, a book by V. Nagowo-Munchausen, "The Adventures of Childhood and Youth of Baron Munchausen" ("Munchhausens Jugend-und Kindheitsаbenteuer"), was published in Russia. The book became the first book in world literature about the childhood and youthful adventures of Baron Munchausen, from the birth of the Baron to his departure to Russia.

The only portrait of Munchausen by G. Bruckner (1752), depicting him in the uniform of a cuirassier, was destroyed during the Second World War. Photos of this portrait and description give an idea of \u200b\u200bMunchausen as a man of strong and proportional build, with a round, regular face. The mother of Catherine II especially notes in her diary the "beauty" of the commander of the guard of honor.

The visual image of Munchausen as literary hero represents a dry old man with a dashingly curled mustache and a goatee. This image was created by illustrations by Gustave Dore (1862). It is curious that when supplying his hero with a beard, Dore (generally very accurate in historical details) admitted an obvious anachronism, since in the 18th century they did not wear beards.

However, it was during Dore's time that beards were reintroduced into fashion by Napoleon III. This gives rise to the assumption that the famous "bust" of Munchausen, with the motto "Mendace veritas" (Latin for "Truth in lies") and the image on the "coat of arms" of three ducks (cf. three bees on the coat of arms of the Bonapartes), had a political subtext of the caricature of the emperor.

And such a monument to Munchausen stands in Sochi near the Seaport.

Baron Munchausen

Baron Munchausen
The protagonist (Munchhausen) of the works of the German writer Rudolf Erich Raspe (1737-1794) "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen". This book consists of the "true" stories of Munchausen about his fantastic travels and incredible adventures in war and hunting.
The prototype of the hero is the Baron from Lower Saxony Karl Friedrich Hiero-nim Munchausen (1720-1797), who was in the Russian service for some time as an officer of the Russian army and who is credited with a series of anecdotal stories that appeared (1781) in the Berlin magazine Vademecum fur lustige Leute "(" A guide for cheerful people "). However, the true authorship of these publications has not been precisely established.
In the form of a book, these stories appeared thanks to the German writer Rudolf Erich Raspe, who, while in England, published (1786) them in English in Oxford under the title "Tales of Baron Munchausen about his wonderful travels and campaign to Russia."
The German translation of this book was made by Gottfried August Burger (1747-1794) and published anonymously in the same year under the title "Wonderful Voyages on Water and Land and the Merry Adventures of Baron Munchausen".
Allegorically: a harmless dreamer and a braggart (joke-iron.).

Encyclopedic Dictionary of winged words and expressions. - M .: "Lokid-Press"... Vadim Serov. 2003.

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Books

• Baron Munchausen, Makeev Sergey Lvovich. The name of Baron Munchausen - an incorrigible liar, inventor and dreamer - has been known to everyone since childhood. Many people also know that a person with such a name is the real Jerome Karl Friedrich von ...
• , Makeev S. .. "Baron Munchausen". The name of Baron Munchausen - an incorrigible liar, inventor and dreamer - has been known to everyone since childhood. Many people also know that a person with such a name is the true Jerome Karl ...

A little old man sitting by the fireplace, telling stories, absurd and incredibly interesting, very funny and "truthful" ... It seems, a little time will pass, and the reader himself will decide that it is possible to pull himself out of the swamp, grabbing his hair, and turn the wolf inside out , to find half of the horse who drinks tons of water and cannot quench their thirst in any way.

Familiar plots, isn't it? Everyone has heard of Baron Munchausen. Even people who don't get along well with fine literature, thanks to cinema, will be able to list a couple of fantastic stories about him right off the bat. Another question: "Who wrote the tale" The Adventures of Baron Munchausen "? Alas, not everyone knows the name of Rudolf Raspe. And is he the real character creator? Literary critics still find the strength to argue on this topic. However, first things first.

Who wrote The Adventures of Baron Munchausen?

The future writer was born in 1736. His father was an official and part-time miner, as well as an ardent lover of minerals. This explained why Raspe spent his early years near the mines. He soon received his basic education, which he continued at the University of Göttingen. At first he was occupied with law, and then natural sciences took over. Thus, nothing indicated his future hobby - philology, and did not foreshadow that he would be the one who wrote The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

Further years

Upon returning to hometown he chooses the activity of a clerk, and then works as a secretary in the library. As a publisher, Raspe made his debut in 1764, offering the world the works of Leibniz, which, incidentally, were dedicated to the future prototype of "Adventures". Around the same time, he wrote the novel Hermine and Gunilda, became a professor and received the position of caretaker of an antique cabinet. Travels through Westphalia in search of old manuscripts, and then rare things for a collection (alas, not his own). The latter was entrusted to Raspe taking into account his solid authority and experience. And, as it turned out, in vain! The one who wrote The Adventures of Baron Munchausen was not a very wealthy person, even a poor one, which made him commit a crime and sell part of the collection. However, Raspe managed to avoid punishment, but how this happened is difficult to say. They say that those who came to arrest the man listened and, fascinated by his gift of a storyteller, allowed him to flee. This is not surprising, because they ran into Raspe himself - the one who wrote "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen"! How could it be otherwise?

The appearance of a fairy tale

The stories, twists and turns associated with the publication of this tale, in fact, turn out to be no less interesting than the adventures of its protagonist. In 1781, the first stories about a cheerful and all-powerful old man are found in the "Guide for Merry People". It was not known who wrote The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. The author considered it necessary to remain in the shadows. It was these stories that Raspe took as the basis for his own work, which was united by the figure of the narrator, had integrity and completeness (unlike the previous version). Tales were written in English, and the situations in which he acted main character, had a purely English flavor, were associated with the sea. The book itself was conceived as a kind of edification directed against lies.

Then the tale was translated into German (this was done by the poet Gottfried Burger), adding and changing the previous text. Moreover, the edits were so significant that in serious academic publications in the list of those who wrote "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" there are two names - Raspe and Burger.

Prototype

The cheerful baron had a real prototype. His name was, like the literary character, Munchausen. By the way, the problem of transferring this remained unresolved. introduced the version "Munchausen" into use, but in modern editions the letter "g" was added to the hero's surname.

The real baron, already at a respectable age, loved to talk about his hunting adventures in Russia. The listeners recalled that at such moments the narrator's face became animated, he himself began to gesticulate, after which incredible stories could be heard from this truthful person. They began to gain popularity and even appear in print. Of course, the necessary amount of anonymity was respected, but people who knew the baron closely understood who the prototype of these lovely stories was.

Last years and death

In 1794, the writer tries to lay a mine in Ireland, but death prevented these plans from being realized. The significance of Raspe for the further development of literature is great. In addition to the invention of the character, which has already become a classic, practically anew (taking into account all the details of creating a fairy tale, which were mentioned above), Raspe drew the attention of his contemporaries to ancient Germanic poetry. He was also one of the first to feel that Songs of Ossian was a forgery, although he did not deny their cultural significance.